Friday, March 19, 2010

excerpts from toni morrison's speech at the PEN/borders literary service award 2008

"truth is trouble...

the alarm, the disquiet writers raise is instructive because it is open, vulnerable. because if unpoliced, it is threatening...

when chaos resists, either by reforming itself or rebelling against imposed order violence is understood to be the most frequent response and the most rational when confronting the unknown, the catastrophic, the wild, the wanton, the incorrigible. rational responses may be sanctured, incarceration in holding camps, prisons or death, sanely or in war...

writers who construct meaning in the face of chaos must be nurtured and must be protected. and it is right that such protection be initiated by other writers. and it is imperative not only to save the beseeched writers but to save ourselves...

certain kinds of trauma visted on people are so deep, so cruel that unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, the rights or the goodwill of others, writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination...

a writer's life and work are not gift to mankind. a writer's life and work are its necessity...

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